The BOLD (Small to Go Big)
The Tiny House movement is revolutionizing how we think about house, home, and lifestyle. Life in a 12x12x12 cube demands a certain level of clarity and determination. It also enables a clear path to experiences and achievements obscured behind housework and clutter in bigger spaces. It is not for the faint of heart. That is why I live that life vicariously through Tiny House videos.
There is a lesson to be learned, though, from the Tiny House lifestyle. Clarity of
The Whisper (Got Clarity?)
I’m addicted to tiny house videos. As I watch the clever arrangement of all of life’s wants and needs into 500 to 900 square feet of space, I try on the lifestyle in my head. What if? Could I?
If I were to live that lifestyle, I reason, I would have to build two tiny structures to accommodate a separate art studio space. Of course, if I want to remain married, I would probably require a third tiny home. I do want to remain married. Usually, at this point in the calculation, I glimpse the possibility of a compound of more than a dozen tiny structures and realize that that tiny footprint is not for me.
Tiny houses appeal to my Designer sensibilities. The arrangements are usually clever and thoughtful. The use of space is measured and multi-purpose. The storage solutions are delightful.
At its base, though, tiny house living is about the thoughtful pursuit of quality of life, of the pursuit of quality over quantity. In order to pare a home down to the confines of a 1728 cubic foot bubble, the occupant must be absolutely clear about what is essential.
I was watching a particularly interesting video about a student housing solution that was being tested in Sweden. Before the test spaces could be inhabited, they were subjected to an inspection by a local government official. On camera, he explained that a significant part of his job entailed ensuring the quality of life of anyone living in the space. As he outlined his areas of concern, it became apparent that he was considering more than just the raw numeric requirements of space and wiring and plumbing. He was concerned with the life that would be possible in the space. Did the room include ample light, sufficient beauty, enough functional support for study and leisure and an abundance of ephemeral,
On the Encyclopedia Britannica website, quality of life is defined as “the degree to which an individual is healthy, comfortable and able to participate in or enjoy life events.”
Is our enjoyment of life our first consideration? Is that what we legislate and discuss? To be fair, our code administrators apply laws created, often after powerful negative lessons, to protect citizens from all sorts of carelessness and criminality. We do have rules about the number of people who can occupy a space, about structural safety, about the safe installation of life-enhancing utilities. I am sadly suspicious, however, that these considerations seem to be motivated more by the desire to avoid lawsuits and the desire to maintain property values more than by any real desire to enhance the quality of life of the people who will be using the spaces. I speak here, of course, in generalities. This is my impression.
What impact would the adoption of a more robust definition of quality of life create in our lives?
A quality of life mindset is essentially one of abundance. In order to transcend considerations of basic needs, one must believe that more is possible and that personal preference and softer desires for beauty, meaning, comfort, indulgence, and fun are important and worthwhile.
By what measure do we judge the systems and spaces that support your life? Are we out to protect and nurture our full life quality or are we concerned only with the bare minimum? What, then, is quality of life?
Without clarity, there is no basis for quality of life design.
Here are three lessons on living a large life derived from binging on tiny house videos (and yes, I am aware that the minimalism https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/philosophy of tiny houses and the excesses of binging are, perhaps, at odds. Just work with me here…)
Quality of Life Requires Clarity of Vision
Consider the conversation between Alice (of in Wonderland fame) and the Cheshire Cat:
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Lewis Carroll
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
By starting with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey so wisely counseled us, we build a decision matrix that helps us to know whether our life (or our tiny house) has room for a harmonica, a guitar or a pipe organ. It all depends on our goal.
Quality of Life Requires Clarity of Needs and Desires
Our wants and needs, then, are defined by our vision. We plan for them, nurture the systems that enable them and choose them in the moment.
If we don’t know what we need and what we want, we will have to walk a very long way to find something that serves and pleases us. And we run the risk of walking right past what we really desire.
In a tiny house, the decision to have wheels or not is determined by the goal of the inhabitants. You cannot visit all 50 states in a stationary dwelling. You cannot fully experience belonging in a place if you keep rolling away.
In quality of life design, the decision to live by the beach or in the mountains is determined by your goal of surfing the waves or of surfing the powder.
Quality of Life Requires Clarity of Resources
In every one of those delicious tiny house videos, there is a discussion of resources. The architects talk about reclaimed barn wood and adaptive reuse of antique fittings. The inhabitants talk about the necessary tools of their lifestyle that they will need to incorporate into the space.
In order to have clarity, we need to understand what we have and where we are. Do we have an eighth acre urban plot or a 300-acre mountainside on which to build our life? Do we have the wherewithal to acquire what we don’t already have but will need?
The resource list encompasses what we already possess, what we can access and the skills and abilities we can utilize to build our assets.
Quality over Quantity Every Time
Every day, we face decisions about how we will spend our time, how we will allocate our assets and how we will move through our lives. Nurturing our clarity of purpose, of wants and needs and of resources, places us in a position to nurture a
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